


Just Another Lakeside Friday Night

by orphan_account



Series: Established Relationship [5]
Category: due South
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are worse ways to spend a Friday night than backing up Kowalski while he works a room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Lakeside Friday Night

Ray usually doesn’t bother to get jealous, these days. Kowalski had picked him, and that’s usually enough. And if one day it isn’t enough, there’s not a lot Ray could do about it. He’s given up trying to _make _people be with him. And he and Kowalski turned out to be so good together, in their own way, that Ray couldn’t imagine why either of them would want to change things.__

Sometimes he pulls out the possessive parts of himself for Kowalski’s amusement. Kowalski really likes it a lot when Ray pins him down, using only his hands and his body weight, and growls things like, “You’re mine, you got that, _you are mine _,” which nearly always makes Kowalski whimper and plead and come so hard he nearly passes out. Once they’d been assembling a lazy morning-off breakfast, and Kowalski, poking at scrambled eggs enhanced with bacon, fresh tomato, mushrooms and basil, was half-hard from either the scent of coffee brewing or from just being alive. Ray noticed it, and when he got up from the table a couple of minutes later to get some plates and flatware organized, he’d paused by the stove, put his hand casually on Kowalski’s dick and said, “Hey, that’s mine, right?” and half-hard became fully hard and if Ray hadn’t moved the pan, the eggs would’ve burned. And at least for the several minutes they spent humping each other against the refrigerator, Kowalski’s cock was also Ray’s cock. Or so Kowalski told him, over and over again. That was a really, really good start to their day, and the eggs had even been salvageable.__

But mostly Kowalski’s his own man, and that’s what Ray likes about being with him. He doesn’t need anyone _depending _on him. When it comes to stuff around the house, he likes that he neither tells Kowalski to get things done nor needs to be told by Kowalski to get things done. They just get things done, one way or another. If Ray’s laid up with the flu, he doesn’t need to worry that Kowalski will forget to pay the cable bill, or that he’ll have to drag himself from his sickbed if the plumbing gets gross on them. Kowalski’s got it covered.__  
Other people don’t realize that about Kowalski. In the 27th, he’s still pretty much Substitute Vecchio, assumed to be mooning ineffectually over Stella (Ray gathers that he himself is considered in pretty much the same light, but he only goes to the 27th when _they _need _him _). Nobody has much confidence in Kowalski’s abilities to be a competent grown human being outside of The Job. Kowalski doesn’t seem to mind that too much; seems to encourage it sometimes. Ray understands that whole wanting to be underestimated thing. During his own visits to the 2-7, he carefully does not hear anyone referring to Kowalski as a “hopeless spaz.” It wouldn't help his professional reputation if he spent as much time rearranging faces with his fists, or at least attitudes with some choice words, as he'd like to.____

Now they’re at a lakeside bar, moon and city lights shining on the water while an impressively age-diverse group of white people are swaying to a reggae band. Someone’s been club-drugging the nightlife scene and this Friday night, every available law enforcement officer in the greater Chicago area is covering some bar or another. Hence Ray’s presence as Kowalski’s backup. No skin off his nose; he’s getting consulting fees to hang out in a bar with his boyfriend on a Friday night. Listening to a couple of trustafarians entreating him to emancipate himself from mental slavery is a fair trade-off. The Red Stripe girls, in their tight red t-shirts, short black skirts and got-to-be-uncomfortable-but-damn-that’s-hot black high heels, strategically brushing against his sleeve and telling him the virtues of real Jamaican beers…well, they’re kind of a bonus. Or they would be if he didn’t know Frannie was in a bar three blocks away doing the same thing with Jaegermeister as part of _her _cover, along with Elaine. At least the Red Stripe girls aren’t secretly cops.__

He’d tried to bitch to Kowalski about it, but all Kowalski did was shrug and say, “All women are our sisters,” which Ray was pretty sure was a direct quote from someone else. It had a certain unmistakable quality of being superficially wise and mature while still being not at all relevant or helpful. Ray doesn't think about Frannie getting ogled by guys his age and instead takes another Red Stripe, sparing a thought for the potted palm into which he’d poured his previous Red Stripe. He's pretty sure it's not the worst thing that had happened to it in its life as bar décor.

Kowalski, as primary, is working the room. Ray watches him skirt the edges of the dance floor, limbs loose and eyes sharp and allows himself a certain anticipatory pride that Kowalski’s going to be going home with _him _. Although there are women in the bar, ranging in age from twenty-two to sixty-two, who are eying Kowalski like he’s their particular door prize. Even if he weren’t trying to provide discreet backup, Ray still wouldn’t feel the need to stand up and yell, “Stay away from him; he’s mine!” because Kowalski’s not really looking at anyone except as a possible suspect.__

Still, Ray’s a little affronted. As far as he’s concerned, Kowalski is an acquired taste. He’s odd looking! And scrawny! His default seduction mode is _nagging _for Christ’s sake! He has no ass! And that voice! The accent! Ray has thrown his life’s lot in with Kowalski and the only time he’s ever thought Kowalski's non-bedroom voice was sexy was that time Kowalski had gotten his fool jaw broken. For six weeks, all Kowalski had to do was ask for a glass of water and Ray had gotten hard. “Lockjaw’s a good sound on you,” he’d explained when Kowalski had raised an inquisitive brow at him. Now Kowalski deploys the lockjaw voice rarely and strategically. That’s how they’d ended up spending their vacation at Universal Fucking Studios instead of in Tuscany.__

Kowalski’s faults are obvious and numerous, to Ray, while his better qualities are more hidden, although admittedly just as numerous. Ray always figured he had scored something big by seeing past the former and latching onto the latter. Except these barflies are all over Kowalski and they haven’t ever seen him rebuild an engine. Or comfort a shocked and distraught witness. Or bounce a nephew on his knee. Or, a few years later, tell that same nephew that Theresa Scarpetta wasn’t good enough for him anyway (Theresa Scarpetta was, in fact, way too good for said nephew, but that’s why Kowalski’s an awesome uncle). Or bring down an armed robber with a well-timed head kick followed by a tragically mangled Miranda warning.

Okay, so he’s got the moves like Astaire, but these Red Stripe soaked harpies haven’t seen him do anything but…. Ray snaps his head up. He’d distracted himself, and that wasn’t good, but now his head’s back in the game, watching his partner as he slides across the dance floor, undulating against a blonde here, twirling a red-head there, and…oh, my God…swaying with a gray-haired baby boomer, kissing her fingers just before he slides out of her reach. Kowalski’s off the dance floor now, and Ray, stupidly, had lost track of what was happening. 

Ray hops off his barstool and heads after Kowalski. Finds him in the men’s room, pissing like there’s a medal for volume.

“Hey,” Kowalski says, and under the fluorescent light he looks more tired than anything else.

“Thought maybe you’d…..”

“Nah, just had to take a piss. Had to dance with everyone in the place to get here,” Kowalski says, zipping up and glancing at his watch. “It’s closing in on last call. I’m pretty sure that whatever’s going down isn’t going down here,” Kowalski says, glancing dubiously at the sinks and the air hand dryer. Ray reaches into his coat pocket to hand Kowalski a bottle of waterless sanitizer, which Kowalski accepts with a grateful nod.

Ray talks into his radio, gets the all-clear.

“Yeah, we can go home,” he tells Kowalski, and they leave for the GTO.

“You were really working the room there for awhile,” Ray says as they walk, and Kowalski smiles, but still looks tired.

“Yeah, still got it,” he says smugly.

“Lot of variables for ‘it’,” Ray says snidely. Kowalski gives him a considering look.

“And you like every single one of ‘em,” Kowalski says. By now they’re standing next to the driver’s side door. Ray glances around, then thinks, _Fuck it. I’m the only person in the world who gets to go home with _Stanley Raymond Kowalski.__

Ray pulls Kowalski in for a quick but promising kiss.

“Every single one,” he affirms, and they go home.


End file.
